Crikey’s story last week on the two new Liberal Party journals is helping to build their readership. Here’s a reader’s comment:

I recently stumbled across a copy of The Party Room
mentioned in Crikey on a train on the way to uni. While it may be of
little consequence in itself, I am concerned that the party which is
currently in government – and which has responsibility for conducting
our foreign affairs – has a publication which on Page 23 claimed “the
citizens of Moldovia went to the polls on March 6th to elect a new
Parliament.” Moldovia, as I am assured by my little sister, is a
country which exists only in The Princess Diaries and its recent sequel.

I’m
even more surprised by this given that on Page 19 there is a link to
the CIA World Factbook, and a cursory glance at this would lead one to
the conclusion that the Libs were thinking of Moldova. The chairman of
the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade
either didn’t know the difference between a cinematic spoof of Monaco
and a country neighboured by Ukraine and Romania, or simply didn’t read
a couple of pages beyond his own article.

You don’t need to be an Arts/Law student like myself to figure this out, my 12- year-old sister could have noticed this.

CRIKEY:
Our reader is quite right; it’s in the “Electoral Roundup” on page 23.
The country’s name is Moldova, although when it was a Soviet republic
it was called Moldavia, so maybe “Moldovia” was the Liberal Party’s
idea of a compromise.